Geobulletin alpha

Imaggeo on Mondays: Using geophysical techniques to unlock the secrets of the past 

Unravelling the secrets of past civilisations is tricky at the best of times. More so if many of the records which hold clues about how communities lived, built their homes and temples, as well as how they fed themselves, were destroyed by subsequent invaders. In these instances, as Felix Rodriguez Cardozo explains in today’s post, geophysical techniques (such as Lidar, which very recently hit the headlines for contributing to discover new Cambodian temples close to Angkor Wat) can be a great [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: The British Winter Storms 

This week’s imaggeo on Monday’s photography is Godrevy Lighthouse in North Cornwall (UK) experiencing the full force of the 2013/14 British Winter Storms which caused damage across the south west of the country. During mid-December 2013 to mid-February 2014 the UK was hit by six major storms bringing record precipitation, strong winds, huge waves and generating overall hazardous conditions. Despite the overall consensus being that these winter months were very wet, the question arose: did [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Storm on the Rock 

This is a photograph of Uluru, in the Northern Territory of Australia, on a hot and humid summer afternoon. As lightning flashed about, torrential rains swept across the landscape and silver rivulets of water began to rush down the sides of the mountain. Uluru is made of red-coloured Proterozoic arkosic sandstones, a coarse grained lithology rich in quartz and feldspars. However, on rare days such as this, the storm clouds and moisture in the atmosphere filter out much of the red end of the [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Half dome at sunset 

Yosemite’s Half Dome stands, majestic, over a granite dominated terrain in the Yosemite Valley area;  one of the most beautiful landscapes in northern America, and arguably, the world – it is also an Earth scientist’ playground. Stamped into the west slope of the Sierra Nevada range, the Yosemite Valley is a collection of lush forests, deep valleys, meandering rivers and streams, all punctuated by huge domes and cliffs of ancient volcanic origin. Come and explore this part of the [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: The waxing Earth 

These incredible images of Earth were acquired from the European MSG-2 satellite on July 21, 2009. The MSG, which stands for Meteosat Second Generation, satellites are operated as a series of satellites which continually orbit our planet, capturing detailed images of Europe, Africa and parts of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean every 15 minutes. The data acquired is largely used by meteorologists. The satellites operate in a geostationary orbit. This means they are located some 36000km above the [...]

Announcing the winners of the EGU Photo Contest 2016! 

The selection committee received over 200 photos for this year’s EGU Photo Contest, covering fields across the geosciences. Participants at the 2016 General Assembly have been voting for their favourites throughout the week  of the conference and there are three clear winners. Congratulations to 2016’s fantastic photographers! In addition, this year, to celebrate the theme of the EGU 2016 General Assembly, Active Planet, the photo that best captured the theme of the conference was selected [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Mother Tree 

Landlocked, home to mountains, deserts and the southernmost permafrost territories, Mongolia’s climate is harsh.  Warm, often humid summers, give way to freezing winters where temperatures dip as low as -25°C. Rainfall is restricted to a short period in the summer months of June and August. These climatic factors, combined with the lack of a strong forest management strategy and anthropogenic influences, mean that only 11% of the vast 1567 million km²  of the Mongolian territory (that is [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Dune ridge perspective 

Imagine taking a hike over soft, ever shifting sands. This is exactly what Martina Klose, a researcher at USDA, did when she captured this beautiful photograph. While most of us will likely think of deserts as inhospitable and static landscapes, they can tell us much about dune forming processes, as Martina explains in today’s blog post. The photograph shows the view down from the crest of a megadune in the Badain Jaran Desert in China. It was taken during a two-day field trip in the course [...]

GeoEd: Using art in your science teaching and outreach. The why and the how. 

This month’s GeoEd post is brought to you by Dr. Mirjam S. Glessmer. Mirjam is a physical oceanographer turned instructional designer. She blogs about her “Adventures in Teaching and Oceanography” and tweets as @meermini. Get in touch if you are interested in talking about teaching and learning in the geosciences! Sometimes we look for new ways to engage our students or the general public in discussions about our science. Today I would like to suggest we use art! Someone recently told me [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Moonland 

The moon-like landscapes surrounding the Himalayan village of Lamayuru attract tourists seeking off-the-beaten track adventures. The village is enchanting, not only for the striking geological formations that frame it, but also for the presence of an 11th Century Buddhist monastery. The rock formations are known as “Moonland”, says Arjun Datta, author of this week’s imaggeo on Mondays featured photograph. “The surreal moon-like rock formations at Lamayuru are nestled in the Greater [...]

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs, National Geographic, January 1993 

The last time I looked at an old issue of National Geographic, it was from 1978, when the ideas put forward in the Dinosaur Renaissance were starting to take hold in the popular imagination. Fifteen years later, and Vol. 183, No. 1 shows just how much progress had been made. What's especially fascinating about this issue of Nat Geo is that it not only looks at the current state of the science, but also how dinosaurs were enjoying a resurgence in popularity among the general public at the time, [...]

GeoTalk: Meet Zakaria Ghazoui, winner of the Communicate your Science Video Competition in 2015! 

If you’ve not heard about our Communicate Your Science Video Competition before it gives early career scientists the chance to produce a video up-to-three-minutes long to share their research with the general public. The winning entry receives a free registration to the General Assembly the following year. In this GeoTalk interview, Laura Roberts talks to Zakaria Ghazoiu, a PhD student whose video following his journey to the Himalayas to collect core samples from lakes was voted as the [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Man-made landscape 

The landscape of the Mersey Estuary in Liverpool Bay is ever changing; it offers the opportunity to observe the changing geomorphology of a river estuary which is closely linked to a very urban and man-made landscape. For more on this unique setting, read today’s Imaggeo on Mondays post brought to you by Maria Burguet Marimon. This picture was taken at Crosby beach, which is located just at the beginning of the Mersey Estuary in the Liverpool Bay. The current Crosby beach dates back in [...]

Falls of the Ohio State Park Interpretive Center Back Open 

January 8, 2016 the new exhibits at Falls of the Ohio State Park Interpretive Center were dedicated and opened up the general public. A large crowd turned out for the center becoming available for visitors to see. One now makes a loop through the exhibits starting with an introductory movie in the theater and then exiting to the geological and paleontology exhibit explaining the Devonian

Imaggeo on Mondays: night cap over Mt. Fuji 

The first Imaggeo on Monday’s post of 2016 is quite spectacular! It features a lenticular cloud capping the heights of Mount Fuji, in Japan. Erricos Pavlis writes this post and describes how the unusual cloud formation comes about and why Mt. Fuji is such a prime place to catch a glimpse of this meteorological phenomena. Mount Fuji at more than 3700 m is one of the highest volcanoes in the world and the highest mountain in Japan,located some one hundred or so kilometers southwest of [...]

A Challenge to communicate 

In this guest post,  Sam Illingworth, regular contributor to GeoLog on all things science communication and education, discusses whether it is the responsibility of all geoscientists to communicate their science and research and challenges you to make some time to get involved in public engagement in 2016. As researchers it is very easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of our scientific endeavours that we forget about the impact of what it is that we are doing. Geoscience is not done in [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Drawing in pencil 

The picture was taken in Salina Turda, a fascinating salt mine in western Transylvania, in Durgău – Valea Sarată near Turda city. In the picture, the pockets created by salt dissolution can be observed. Over time, due to the erosive power of air currents, the walls have been reshaped: the corners have been rounded and, at the contact between the roof and the walls, a series of dissolution pockets form. The pockets are created by the effect of the water, found in the moist atmospheric [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Flying Rocks 

The picture was taken at a hillslope close to the glacier tongue of the Great Aletsch Glacier, the largest glacier in the Alps. With a length of 23 km it is located in the eastern Bernese Alps of Switzerland and composed of the three smaller glaciers Aletschfirn, Jungfraufirn and Eternal snow field converging at Concordia where the ice thickness was measured to be around 900m. The whole area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001. Alpine slopes in the region have been exposed to [...]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Annapurna snow avalanche 

The Annapurna massif, is located in an imposing 55 km long collection of peaks in the Himalayas which behave as a single structural block. Composed of one peak (Annapurna I Main) in excess of 8000 m, a further thirteen peaks over 7000 m and sixteen more of over 6000 m, the massif forms a striking structure within the Himalayas. Annapurna I Main, the tenth highest peak in the world, is towering at an impressive 8,091 m. Renowned for its difficult climbing conditions, it holds one of the highest [...]

Communicate Your Science Video Competition is now open! 

Want to communicate your research to a wider audience and try your hand at video production? Now’s your chance! The competition is open to early career scientists (ECS) who intend to register for the EGU General Assembly. The aim is to produce a video up-to-three-minutes long to share your research with the general public. The winning entry will receive a free registration to the General Assembly in 2017. Your video can include scenes of you out in the field and explaining an outcrop, or at [...]